


Neither Flesh Nor Foul

by Anti_kate



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Actually A Lot Of Plot For 3000 Words, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Even When He's All Scaly, How many times can one person write first times, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Lots the answer is lots, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Not Quite Xeno, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Protective Crowley, Snake-ish Sex, a hint of plot, implied injury, monsterfucker aziraphale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:48:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27687835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anti_kate/pseuds/Anti_kate
Summary: Change back,he willed himself again, and still nothing happened. He was conscious then of Aziraphale’s hands on his shoulders, and how close they were. How close Aziraphale was, kneeling beside him, while he waslike this.Crowley is stuck in his monstrous demonic form after an angelic attack, and Aziraphale confesses his feelings.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 460
Collections: Get A Wiggle On Zine





	Neither Flesh Nor Foul

**Author's Note:**

> This is my NSFW piece for the Get A Wiggle Off Zine. I was inspired by that scene in the TV show where Crowley goes full fangy snakehead. Fangy snakehead rights! 
> 
> Anyway, a big thanks to my co-mods Mod C and Summerofspock, and all the other contributors to the zine, for making it a huge success. Extra thanks to our fantastic designer Claude and printer Smurph for doing the hard yards, and to everyone who bought the finished product.
> 
> Thank you also to Darcy Lindbergh for beta-ing this fic!
> 
> CW: implied injury, a little bit of blood and off-screen violence, and vaguely xeno sex.

They came with the smell of ozone and the crackle of lighting.

Crowley had expected it every day since the world hadn’t ended, every time that stupid little bell over the shop door gave a cheery ding. Every time, he’d look up from wherever he was lurking, expecting it to be Beelzebub or Gabriel, or maybe even a joint effort, warrior angels and demons with actual pitchforks. 

He’d imagined it so often that it was almost a relief when it happened.

Almost.

Friday night. The shop was shut. Crowley sprawled on the sofa, boots kicked off, watching Tiktoks on his phone while something boring and classical played on Aziraphale’s gramophone. The angel was reading, of course, and it was all perfectly ordinary, perfectly wonderful. It was more than he’d ever expected, and he knew it wouldn’t last forever, but he could pretend, couldn’t he? And even if it wasn’t everything he wanted, because he was a half-starved thing, he told himself it was enough. (He’d always wanted more. Wanted answers he never got from heaven, wanted compassion from hell, wanted something impossibly human from Aziraphale.)

And then the angels were there, in a flash too bright for mortal eyes, four of them flanking Gabriel.

“It’s over now, Aziraphale,” Gabriel said, and the other angels stepped forward as one, spears of light appearing in their hands. 

Crowley didn’t have time to think; he launched himself upright and raised his hand to snap his fingers—that would give them enough time to get away, to make a plan—but Gabriel waved a hand. Crowley felt the room shimmer and snap as time seized up around them and the world’s gears stopped turning.

“You thought you were the only one who knew that trick, buddy?” Gabriel laughed, without humour. 

They were out of time.

“Now Gabriel—” Aziraphale rose to his feet.

“We’re done,” Gabriel said, and gave a little flick of his hand.

One of the spear-bearing angels stepped forward, the weapon lifted towards Aziraphale, and raised his arm.

And Crowley let himself go and let the demon within bubble up, slide out. Let himself go, let the monstrous thing inside take over. Something between snake and human and something else, something with obscenely long teeth and scaled skin and glowing eyes. Something dredged up from the darkest part of hell.

Even as he moved the angel released the spear, and if he could have frozen time he would have, but he couldn’t, all he had was his corporation, flinging himself desperately between the angels and _his_ angel—

—there was a blinding flash of light and searing pain and then he fell into darkness.

* * *

The room swam into focus, and he became dimly aware of himself. He was on his back. In the bookshop. Above him, a ceiling abutted by bookshelves. He _ached._

Aziraphale’s face came into his field of vision. “Crowley, are you awake?”

Crowley tried to blink, opened his mouth to speak, but his mouth was wrong. The wrong tongue, the too-long teeth… He was, he realised, still in that in-between demonic form. Human-shaped, but strange and scaled, a snake-skin draped over a stick figure. Three-inch-long fangs that protruded jaggedly from his mouth. A long, forked tongue. Piss-yellow lidless eyes. Wicked claws that promised tearing evisceration. 

This form was literally the stuff of nightmares, and not a shape Aziraphale had often been witness to. Maybe once or twice in the early days when Crowley had been ordered to bring nightmares to isolated villages, that time during the Crusades, and again at the manor house at Tadfield.

 _Change back,_ he thought, and nothing happened. 

“Safe?” he managed to hiss. _Are you safe?_

“We’re safe. Adam saw to that. And he healed you,” Aziraphale was saying, his voice distant. “But he said it might take you a little while to recover.”

“Adam?” Crowley said, but what came out was a low scraping sound. He tried again, and the word was almost there.

Apparently Aziraphale understood what he meant anyway, and nodded. “He came almost instantly. It was...well. I was so very grateful. He sent them away with a very stern warning. And he. He healed you.” He gave one of his wobbly almost smiles.

The angels, Gabriel freezing time, the glowing spear...

“You all right?” Crowley managed to get out around those teeth. _His_ teeth. 

“I’m perfectly fine.” Aziraphale leaned closer, put a hand on Crowley’s arm. “All thanks to you. My dear. You shouldn’t have done that. Can you sit up?”

“Yes,” Crowley said, and that was easier to say, to get the sibilants out. Aziraphale eased him into a sitting position, which made everything ache even more. He looked down, saw his shirt was torn open, the black material stained dark and sticky too, red belly scales flashing through the gaping fabric. He touched his own side, pressed in lightly with his talons. 

_Change back,_ he willed himself again, and still nothing happened. He was conscious then of Aziraphale’s hands on his shoulders, and how close they were. How close Aziraphale was, kneeling beside him, while he was _like this._

“Geddoff, I’m fine,” he said, pushing at one of Aziraphale’s arms. 

“Are you, truly?” Aziraphale settled back, but he let go. “I’d say you look a bit peaky but it is rather hard to tell.”

Crowley hissed at that. “Shut it.”

Aziraphale flinched and Crowley added dismay to the list of unpleasant sensations.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said. “I just meant—”

Crowley shook his head. “S’orright. M’sure this isn’t...a good view. Just can’t. Change back.” For _somebody’s_ sake, it was hard making his too-long tongue, forked as it was, curl around human words. He’d never spent more time like this than he'd had to, never tried to have a little tete-a-tete with an angel while in this concentrated demonic form. Usually, he only put on this shape to frighten humans who’d decided summoning a demon was a fun Friday night game. 

It was an ugly form, and a reminder what Crowley really _was,_ and he preferred not to remind Aziraphale. Preferred not to have the differences between them revealed so clearly. 

He concentrated, and spoke slowly. “Happens sometimes. Takes a few days. I’ll go. So you don’t have to put up with it.”

Aziraphale’s face went through a series of emotions, like a high cloud moving quickly across the sky. “Crowley—”

“Call you. When I change back.” He tried to get his feet under him but everything lurched and he sprawled sideways, and then Aziraphale had his hands on him again, steadying him back. 

“I don’t think you’re going anywhere, dearest,” Aziraphale said, easing him back until his back hit something. The sofa. “In fact, I must insist that you stay here and recuperate.”

“Jus’ need a nap.” Crowley wondered if adding sunglasses would help, decided against it. He’d probably look even more like a demonic muppet if he did. 

“You can nap here.” 

“Scare away the customers.”

“Bugger the customers!”

A wheezing laugh choked its way out of Crowley’s throat. “Any excuse.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale continued, firmly now. “You just saved me. You threw yourself in front of a flaming spear, you could have been killed—”

Crowley wished he could close his eyes, but he was too much of a snake in this form. “’S nothing.”

“No...no...what! You could have been permanently discorporated.” Aziraphale took in a hitching breath, and Crowley thought of the bookshop on fire, the burning books, the conflagration he’d felt inside. “I thought for a moment you had. I thought I’d...lost you.”

He let himself look at Aziraphale now, saw the strain in his face, saw the blood on his waistcoat and his trousers. Crowley’s blood, ink and nightmare black.

“Please Crowley, I would much prefer you to stay,” Aziraphale said, his voice barely above a whisper. 

“Like this?” Crowley waved a clawed hand over himself, and the words came out even as he tried to keep them in, mangled by the wrongness of his mouth, by the pounding of his heart. “You like pretty things. This isn’t pretty.” Aziraphale was so close, still too bloody close, Crowley could smell his own blood, and beneath that, a familiar angelic scent.

Aziraphale took a breath, seemed to make a decision, and spoke. “I am rather fond of you in any form.”

“Angel—” Crowley croaked, but Aziraphale held up a hand.

“Please. Let me say something...I’ve wanted to speak with you so very badly, but every time my courage failed. And I thought... I thought we’d have more time. But tonight when you were hurt...before Adam healed you...I realised that I was being foolish. Again.” Aziraphale’s voice trembled. He was afraid. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Crowley said, forcing himself to speak slowly, to let his demon tongue make the words as clear as possible. “Whatever it is, we’ve got time.”

Aziraphale reached out, and put a hand on Crowley’s face, cupping his scaled, inhuman jaw. “Well then,” he said. “Could I kiss you?”

 _Now?_ Crowley thought, _while I’m like this,_ but what came out of his mouth sounded something like a strangled goose. 

Aziraphale seemed to take that as an affirmative, and pressed a chaste kiss to Crowley’s scaled cheek, and then sat back. “There,” he said, as if he’d just shelved a book that had previously defied categorization. 

Crowley considered his options. He’d already thrown himself in front a flaming spear. This wasn’t so bad, compared to that. “Problem is... can’t kiss you back right now though. Too many teeth.”

Aziraphale finally smiled, with a gentleness Crowley was sure he’d never deserve. “Is that what you’d want? To kiss me too?”

If he’d been able to, Crowley would have laughed at the absurdity of the question. “Everything. Want everything. With you.”

Aziraphale made a soft breathy noise. “What a wonderful coincidence,” he said. “I want everything with you too.”

* * *

It didn’t happen at all as Crowley had imagined it would (although he’d imagined it often, and in a dizzying variety of variations and settings; from sharing tentative kisses in a grassy clearing in Eden to being fucked senseless by the angel in the backseat of the Bentley). He’d never considered it while he was stuck in this halfway point; neither snake nor human, neither flesh nor fowl. 

Aziraphale put his arms around Crowley and pulled him closer, and he let himself sink into it. He thought that might be it, that they’d just hold each other, and Crowley knew he could fall asleep with his head resting against Aziraphale’s shoulder. Finally within his arms. But Aziraphale’s hand slid lower and somehow under the back of his shirt, fingertips skating gently over his scales. 

Crowley couldn’t help the hiss that escaped him, and Aziraphale gave a low hum in return and did it again. 

It didn’t feel the same way it would if he had skin instead of scales. It didn’t matter.

Aziraphale’s fingers stroked lightly up the length of his spine, and down again, and Crowley shuddered. There wasn’t anything in the world beyond that motion, beyond the feel of his arms Aziraphale’s midsection.

Then Aziraphale kissed him again, this time on the side of his neck, open-mouthed. 

Some dim part of Crowley thought they should probably talk about this before they went any further, given his current condition, but the louder part of his brain simply directed him to tilt his head, allowing more access to the scales across his throat. 

Another kiss, and another, and then Aziraphale moved him gently back onto the rug, lying him down with terrible gentleness, his fingers opening Crowley’s shirt, pushing it back from his shoulders. He looked down at Crowley with an expression usually reserved for particularly extravagant French desserts. It was excruciating.

Crowley definitely should say something, should call for a short pause to proceedings, should point out all the ways his body was categorically inhuman, but Aziraphale kissed his neck again and he had no more room for rational thought. He’d wanted this for so long, even though in his fantasies Crowley had been able to touch the angel back, properly. His claws were too long and wickedly curved for that now, though, and he settled for laying his hands flat on Aziraphale’s back as the angel stroked down his sides.

His hands came to rest on Crowley’s hips, one thumb running along the inside of his sharp hipbone. “May I?” 

“Yes.” _Anything, anything you want._

His fingers found Crowley’s belt buckle, and then he drew Crowley’s jeans down his hips. 

If he was surprised at what he found between Crowley’s legs—the scales already parted around the hard line of a definitely-not-human cock, the red of it the wrong colour, the length of it the wrong proportion, ridged where ridges shouldn’t be—he didn’t say anything. He simply pulled his jeans down and off, and then moved back up Crowley’s legs, pressing kisses against Crowley’s scaled knees and inner thighs as he went, pausing at last at the junction between thigh and hip.

“I want to make you feel good,” Aziraphale murmured. “Darling.”

Crowley could only manage something he hoped sounded like a yes, and it must have done, because Aziraphale kissed his cock, opened his warm soft mouth and took the head of it in, his tongue moving slowly, deliberately. 

Crowley heard himself hissing, distantly, as everything narrowed again down to the sensation of Aziraphale’s mouth moving along his length. The warmth of it, the slick, the pleasure curling up from the point of contact between them, building with each movement of Aziraphale’s mouth.

He didn’t want his claws anywhere near Aziraphale’s pale head, so he dug them into the carpet beneath him. He was probably going to leave holes in the rug; he’d fix them later. 

Aziraphale made one of his creme brûlée moans and as much as Crowley tried not to push his hips up, thrust further into Aziraphale’s mouth, tried not to be too demanding, he couldn’t help it. Couldn’t help but arch into that warm mouth. 

He looked down then, and Aziraphale was looking up, his pale blue eyes open wide as he sucked Crowley down, his mouth stretched around his cock, and any self-control he had was gone. It was too good, and he came with a snarl, his claws puncturing the wooden floor below. 

A few heartbeats passed then until Aziraphale pulled away, and Crowley heard him hum again, a pleased sound. He kissed Crowley’s hip, and then his belly-scales, where a navel would be when he was truly human-shaped, and moved up until he was on all fours above Crowley. He’d lost his clothes at some point, Crowley realised, and now he could reach out and carefully lay his palms on his naked shoulders. He felt the press of Aziraphale’s cock against his belly too, the slide of wetness between them.

“You too,” he hissed, and pushed Aziraphale’s shoulders back, still careful not to curl his fingers in, still afraid his claws would break through the angel’s perfect skin. “Want to see.”

“If you’re sure,” Aziraphale said, his voice breathy and low.

“Yes. Show me.” And then, for emphasis: _“Please.”_

Aziraphale settled back, his knees bracketing Crowley’s hips, and now Crowley could see his white-haired stomach, the curve of his pink prick above pale curls. He began working himself with one hand, and Crowley longed to lick at him in return, but his teeth were too sharp. Instead, he watched as Aziraphale’s hand moved with a rhythmic twisting motion and his head tilted back, his eyes narrowed with pleasure. He was beautiful and perfect and Crowley wanted it to never end, but he was also desperate to see the angel fall apart. 

“On me, angel,” he urged. 

Aziraphale let out a low groan, his strokes growing faster and harder, and then he came in white streaks across Crowley’s red belly scales. 

The only sound was his harsh breathing, and then his eyes opened and he looked down at Crowley, and smiled. “Well then.”

“Yeah,” Crowley huffed, and carefully reached for his hand. “Come here.”

Aziraphale’s smile widened. He clicked his fingers and the mess was gone, then he stretched out beside Crowley once more. This time Crowley twisted around to tangle their legs together, carefully coiled an arm around Aziraphale’s shoulders. They lay together in silence, and Crowley felt the call of sleep again. A heavy drowsiness settled across his limbs and his vision blurred around the edges. 

“Wait—” Aziraphale said, suddenly sitting up. “I didn’t—Crowley, I didn’t tell you.”

“Tell me?”

“That I...I love you.” He gave another smile, this one nervous, as if he was confessing something.

His words landed between them, and something inside Crowley cracked and popped, and he changed at last. His scales shivered back into skin, his claws shortened, his eyes could blink again, and he ran a tongue along the inside of short, blunt teeth.

“Love you too, angel,” he said, the words rolling easily from his human mouth now. And then he hooked a thin, freckled, _human_ arm around Aziraphale’s neck and pulled him down, and kissed him again and again. 


End file.
